How a Failed Suicide Bomber Became Center of Hostage-Swap Talks
TV grabs taken from the Jordanian TV shows Iraqi Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi, 35, who accompanied her husband on a suicide mission in Amman and failed to detonate her explosive belt, displaying her belt during a televised confession on Nov. 13, 2005.
Photograph: AFP via Getty ImagesSajida Al-Rishawi hid a belt of explosives and another packed with ball bearings under her baggy, floor-length coat and set off with her husband to blow up a hotel full of wedding guests in Jordan’s capital in November 2005. Her bomb failed to explode.
Nine years later, Al-Rishawi is at the center of a hostage-swap demand after Islamic State militants sought her release from a Jordanian prison where she’s held on death row in exchange for Kenji Goto, a Japanese journalist they’ve threatened to kill. A shackled Goto explained the group’s demands in a Jan. 24 video where he held up a photo of the decapitated body of a second Japanese hostage.